You’ve probably heard that professional mixing engineers use compression when they mix. 

Understanding what a compressor does and when you should use it might give you a clearer insight into why you should compress your tracks and how to go about it.

What Does a Compression Do?

In the simplest of terms, it's a level controller. It makes the softer signals louder and the louder signals softer.

It manages your signal for you, raising it and lowering it depending on how loud it is.

But it's also a tone-shaper. A waveform-bender.

How you use the threshold, ratio, attack, and release will all change the shape of the waveform and bending it to sound the way you want it.

But using compression and knowing how to compress are two different things.

It comes down to the mentality of using compression as a tool, not as a crutch.

So instead of slapping a compressor plug-in on each track because that’s how you think it’s done ask yourself what the end goal of using the compressor is going to be.

• Do you need to tighten the drums?
   
• Do you need to level the vocals?
   
• Do you need to tame the attack of the transients?

All of these questions have different compression answers depending on what you’re trying to accomplish.

So when things are nicely balanced, and EQ’d (maybe with the Audio Issues EQ plug-in), the thing you reach for next is the compressor. 

Only this time you should ask yourself why you’re doing it and then try to accomplish those goals.

Once you know that you can start playing with your toys.

We'll talk more about compression this week in our upcoming emails, but if you'd like to dig into the topic and really learn how to use it, there's a start to finish section inside the Mix Finisher Formula that will help you understand everything you need to know about compression.

Click here to enroll in Mix Finisher Formula so that you can finally understand compression once and for all.